Second, most managers want their employees to like them. The
issue comes when everyone crosses the line, and respect is
loss.

In this article, we look at the issue with being everyone’s
friend when you’re the boss and how to deal with it.

Leadership is Coaching

The best managers care about their team members, but they also
know it’s up to them to mentor and coach their staff to be the best
employees they can be. (tweet this)

If you want a great waitress, it’s all about training, coaching,
and feedback. This is hard to do if you’re best friends.

While being a leader isn’t always fun, it’s important that you
put your restaurant first and do what’s best for it and your
staff.

Leadership requires a person who knows how to have fun, but it
also requires someone the team respects, someone who can lay out
expectations and knows their staff will work hard to meet them.
(tweet this)

It’s up to you to push your team to grow so your restaurant
experiences great success. This is why it’s so much more important
that you focus on coaching your team instead of being liked by them
and being everyone’s friend.

Leadership Can’t Thrive in Conflict

For managers who choose to be everyone’s friend
outside of work, they’ll find it quite difficult to thrive.

For example, if the friendship between boss and staff member has
a conflict, it creates tension in the workplace. It can get so bad
that one or the other staff members quits.

It’s very hard to work with or for someone you have a conflict
with. What’s more, because you were friends on a personal level,
anything you entrusted to them is now fair game.

The conflict can quickly get out of hand, and all your perceived
confidences are gone.

This is another reason not to put a strain on your work
relationship by adding friendship outside work to the mix.

While being friendly is okay, spending
time together outside of work diminishes your leadership.

Leadership Struggles When There are Favorites

Let’s say that as the manager, you establish a close personal
friendship with one of your subordinates. The relationship grows.
You hang out together after work, share stories together, meet each
other’s families.

As the boss, this leaves you wide open to calls of
favoritism in the workplace. And, indeed, you may even play
favorites without knowing it.

You’ll permanently damage your company culture by having select
employees who are friends and either openly or inadvertently
playing favorites.

The rest of your employees will resent both of you and spend
their shifts unhappy. People will get jealous, and gossip runs
rampant. Your other team members feel left out and angry.

This throws off the entire employee morale and balance in the
workplace.

So, again, being everyone’s friend, or even one person’s friend
doesn’t work and causes conflict.

Leadership Means Knowing Your Team

You can take another tact, though. You can decide to be friendly
with your employees.

Just because you can’t be their friend, doesn’t mean you can’t
be friendly. You can still be the leader in charge and still ask
people how their weekend was, if their son won the soccer
tournament, or if their daughter enjoyed her vacation.

Operate from the mantra, “I don’t need to be liked, but I am
going to be likeable.”

There are definite benefits to be gained from getting to know
your employees on a personal level. This means getting to know them
but not getting too personal.

The key is to do this equally among your staff. This can happen
in the breakroom or on lunch outings with your entire group.

By getting to know your team better, you can learn what drives
them. You’ll see what they like to do in their spare time.
Ultimately you better understand their talents and their
motivations so you can provide the right kind of coaching to elicit
the best results for your restaurant.

Take an interest in your staff, and you’ll engender their trust
and enhance employee morale. Send cards for both the happy and the
sad occasions. Show you care.

Just be cognizant of your boundaries. Any socializing should be
done on a company-wide basis and not with select individuals.
Maintain your role as the leader who also cares about his/her
team.

Leadership is Professional

Another problem can arise when you share too much information
with your employees. For example, if you’re going through a divorce
or having a baby, there are some things you shouldn’t share.

You are crossing the friendship line when you share too much
personal information. Your team is not your sounding block. Don’t
complain about your boss. Don’t share intimate details of your
professional life. Don’t share confidential restaurant information
or info about other employees.

Maintain your own group of friends outside of work or with your
own manager-level co-workers. Be discreet and careful what
you share.

Many leaders have been sidelined because they shared too much,
and their team members lost respect for them.

Final Thoughts

It’s so easy to cross the line in either direction: either being
too friendly or not nearly friendly enough.

If you’re too friendly, you lack the respect needed to lead and
offer constructive criticism. If you’re completely unfriendly,
you’ll encounter the same problems.

Both instances lead to unhappy staff and unnecessary
turnover.

Your best bet is to hit a middle ground. Work to foster a
trusting, honest, engaging, and communicative relationship with
your employees that is friendly without compromising your
leadership.

Remember that you’re the person handling performance reviews and
conflict as it arises. You are the one that needs to set the
company culture and engender loyalty in your staff.

According to the dictionary, a friend is a
favored companion. It’s one person attached to another by
affection. Yet, being friendly means showing interest and
goodwill and being helpful.

So, you see that friends and friendly are different terms. You
will be the best restaurant leader if you are friendly and not
everyone’s friend.

At Restaurant Engine, not only do we create great,
responsive websites, but you can count on us to create a website
that drives business to your restaurant and edges you above the
competition by using mobile-friendly design with a terrific user
experience. Ready to take the plunge and create a website with an
online menu, blog and beautiful photos? Get your free website
consultation today!